When it came out I've played ~50h. Became boring pretty quickly. Tried again when 2.0 came out, quickly uninstalled (fantastic idea with enemy scalling - boring fights became even more boring: start a game, pick up a random pistol and go kill everybody in the whole city. Pickup a shotgun and you are a demi-god). Tried again in 2025 - well, lets forget about this game - same endless cutsceness, no fun from fights at all, graphics look pretty mediocre today, even with RTX and in 4k. I had more fun with $6 indies than with this - but maybe its just me. I do like sandbox games (I got 1000's of hours in Fallouts, Skyrim etc, Bannerlord and many other sandboxes), but somehow I really don't enjoy CDP games. I tried Witchers, tried this, I'm always dissapointed very quickly. Something in the gameplay there does not tick with me. No challenge and no reward maybe? That got even more evident with the 2.0 patch that completely ruined the already very poor balance. Have spent 2h walking around city killing evey enemy I see, died once. Bumped difficulty level, no change. I found dozens of weapons, not even one that would be any better than what I carry. All clothes are cosmetics only. I guess the only point it to see the story, but as I seen the beginning of it twice already, up till Johny Silverhand and some hotel mission that you play as him, I can't be bothered to go through it again. Especially if progression is anyhow illusionary - why would I bother getting new weapons or hacks etc, if I already can win 90% of the fights on the first try, with a pistol?
Frustrating? Sure! Buggy? Of course! Clunky UI? Guaranteed! Ugliest NPCs you will ever see? Hell yeah! Aliens with woices tham make you want to quit the game? Check! Rudimentary documentation, mostly made by a fanbase? Here we go! Unique? Absolutely! Grandest RTS in existence? Yes. The best trading game? Yes. Can you own thousands of spaceships? Yes. Can you fly any of them? Yes. Can you design your own space stations? Yes. Can you board ships? Sure. Can you be a pirate? Aye! Do you have to guard your logistics? You better do :) Wait a second? LOGISTICS? In a computer game? Yep. From resource minning, hauling, processing, down to ship production with many intermediates needed in the process. And you need to move them all around first. Well, I'm biased - I have been playing the X series since the first game, and I have 1000s of hours sunk into it. But let me tell you a bit about it, so that you know what to expect (as I find the revievs here unjust): It is a grand-scale RTS/Trading simulation sandbox, with space shooter elements in it. Pew-pew in it can be fun, but can also be frustrating. There are many kinds of ships, from S (Small) to XL ones. Lets just mention that some of the Medium ships can dock S ones, and many of the L/XL ones can dock multiple M's at once. That's to indicate the scale. And no, you will not get into a starter ship and conquer the galaxy. You will actually get killed very, very quickly, no matter how good you think you are. Its a SANDBOX, where your games last WEEKS to MONTHS realtime. Its one-of-a-kind, with zero, null, nada competition. There are no other games in existence even close to it. No, EVE is not like it, neither is Elite, nor Star Citizen. Some elements are similar, but it's a different game altogether. You can build an empire with mining ships, space stations producing various goods, wharfs, shipyards, thousands of workers and have countless ships flying around. Or you can get frustrated and ragequit well before doing so.
